What’s Wrong with the Food We Eat
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What’s Wrong with the Food We Eat
Our guest speaker, Mark Bittman, is a food journalist, author, and former New York Times food columnist. Writing about food is what he does for a living; therefore makes him relevant to my topic about protein consumption. Food has become important to him in the last couple of years.
In the 1900s, everyone consumed local food, where every family had a cook. Families consumed food prepared by moms. Shipping food during this time was a ridiculous idea. Every person was a locavore. There was no snack food, and up until the ’20s, there were no frozen food and restaurant chains. Fancy food was entirely French, and vitamins had yet to be invented. Railroads expanded in the ’30s, and fresh food began to travel more. The overproduction of food made it necessary to produce food in factories. Obesity rates and chronic diseases have increased at a higher level since 1900 due to unhealthy foods.
Animal and plants contain different lipids composition. Livestock contains 40-60% of saturated fatty acids. Plants contain SFA, mainly found in processed foods. They contain unsaturated fatty acids. The main difference is plant fats being liquid oils at room temperature while animal fats are solid.
Mark gives reasons for removing livestock products from our diet. Firstly, there is no good reason for eating much meat as we do. 18% of livestock production is attributed to greenhouse gases, and We don’t need to eat animal products for sufficient nutrition.
In my opinion, we consume too much meat, junk food and avoid vegetables and fruits. I will choose healthy foods for the environment, which includes organic foods that are not harmful to the environment.
This image is important as it inspires one to eat organic and unprocessed food for healthier living and weight loss.
The paleo diet includes the consumption of lots of vegetables, whole fruits, nuts, eggs, seed butter, healthy fats, and grass-fed meats. Consume gluten-free legumes and grains. Organic grass-fed ghee and butter are good for the heart (Cordain, 2012). Also, it includes proteins like salmon. It also includes a fat-free higher carbohydrate diet. The diet helps one to lose weight, which helps in keeping the heart-healthy.
This image shows a modified version of a paleo diet.
Reference
Cordain, L. (2012). AARP The paleo diet revised: Lose weight and get healthy by eating the foods you were designed to eat. John Wiley & Sons.